


Cuppa?

by asimplemind (softly_speaking_valkyrie)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fugitive of the Judoon, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confession, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sapphic, Wholesome, very mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softly_speaking_valkyrie/pseuds/asimplemind
Summary: The Doctor's slipping and she knows it. Everything's getting too much for the first time in thousands of years and she's finally having trouble coping with it mentally. How often does that happen? Following a double adventure involving the Judoon, incredible revelations and alien birds, it all becomes too much to handle, and when the TARDIS itself nudges at Yaz to go help the Doctor alone, it becomes a little too much for the copper too. But when the Doctor lands in Yaz's kitchen desperate for help, how can she refuse the woman she loves....
Relationships: The Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 13
Kudos: 79





	Cuppa?

The TARDIS doors closed no sooner or later than the Doctor wanted; she was, however, smiling as she fell onto the commanding console and pulled down the lever to send the ship into flight. The Fam was laughing (mostly Ryan cackling over the others) and Graham whooped when the Doctor turned around to reveal her smiling face.

“Finally! She cracks a smile!” The eldest male of the group called, forcing the Doctor to smirk, even more, holding her hands up as guilty charged. Yaz moved from behind Graham and pressed herself at the side of the Time Lord.

The thrill of their latest chase combined with their renewed sense of companionship had finally subdued the feeling of dreaded existentialism and looming doom deep within the Doctor’s soul. She still felt it, building to a tumultuous crescendo, which was certain; her heart ached for it, and her body felt itself breaking down with the dreaded feeling of something or someone else beyond the next corner. As her chuckle finished and Graham and Ryan’s continued, she found herself looking at the floor of the TARDIS control room. She was lost in herself, in the thousands of millions of thoughts rifling all around her incredible mind by the second. So many old friends, enemies and feelings had absorbed into her Gallifraean flesh for the first time in millennia. She felt like a war-torn man again, upon her eleventh regeneration (although she had considered it her tenth at the time) and long lost from the feelings of normalcy she had lived for centuries before the Time War.

There was an interesting thought... The Time War. At that, the Doctor’s eyes twitched and she looked to the side. The feelings within the galaxy that had existed before the conflict felt as if they were returning. It didn’t just feel like something was coming for her.

It felt like something was building up all around her.

Yaz gripped the Doctor’s hand tightly next to her, pulling her gaze up from the floor and to the woman at her side. Their eyes met in the low light of the TARDIS control room and the Doctor saw the flickering reflection of the crystalline pillars coming off of the darks of Yaz’s eyes. She looked ethereal, almost not even human at all in that picturesque scene. She went from being absorbed in the floor and thought to being completely mesmerised in her female companion. It was almost feeling like the Doctor was looking at Rose, or Donna, or Amelia... The faces of her companions past reflected in Yasmin’s eyes and came back upon the Time Lord, bringing her eyes to well up glassy.

“Doctor? Are you okay?” Yaz asked, with the two boys suddenly growing silent around them.

Yaz’s words shocked the Doctor back once more, pulling her attention to the Fam all around her. While they had had their talk just after the Judoon complication, still there was a hole where the Doctor’s heart lay, her chest heaving constantly under the weight of her impending dread. She didn’t want them to suffer for her own actions or something she had missed. No, the Doctor could not return to those days; the days when it was her companions always facing the consequences for her lack of foresight or accountability.

The long since spoken words of Davros replayed in her mind from over three regenerations ago. “Always running, never looking back because you dare not...” She couldn’t go back there. She had to protect her family, those she loved the most – the woman she loved the most clutching onto her hand. Yet another thought, more self-indulgent than ever.

The Doctor had not even told Yaz how she had truly felt about her since the early days of travelling with her, since the time they stopped the P’Ting.

“Doc? Y’alright?” Graham asked, his voice sharp and his cockney accent blunt and yet comforting.

Ryan asked next, coming closer to her as the Time Lord felt herself amiss for any words or response. Was she really crying? Close to crying? She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears she knew were welling if not already escaping. There were three of Ryan at her front, three of Yaz at her right side and three of Graham beyond. What was wrong with her?

She didn’t know; but nothing felt right.

“It’s okay, Doctor... You can tell us,” Ryan reminded her, reaching to hold her hand as she flinched and looked away, dwelling on the building doom within her.

The Master, Gallifrey, Judoon, Captain Jack Harkness, Cybermen... Even the Dalek over a year ago. What did it all mean? Certainly something...

“Doctor? It’s okay; we’re here for you...” She could hear Yaz say next to her, placing a consoling hand on her thigh, reminding her of their closeness. It was enough to dissolve some of the Time Lord’s apprehension and dread just a little. Seeing Yaz with the consoling and loving smile on her face was enough to anchor the Time Lord, and she gripped the woman’s hand back in an appreciative gesture before standing.

“Thank you... All of you... I just, I need a minute I think; I’ll be back soon,” the Doctor argued, before filing up the hexagonal beehive-like steps into the deeper bowels of the TARDIS, leaving the group around the haphazard control panel without her. They were of course bewildered and concerned.

The TARDIS made a shunt, a hiss and a whirl as if she was usually trying to talk to the Doctor if she were around. Yaz looked to the central column, what could have been the engine to the magnificent time ship. It didn’t move but the luminosity of its glow was peculiar now as if she was hurting inside. Yaz could feel the TARDIS’s apprehension and concern; she felt it for the blonde too. Graham hand his hands in his pockets as if he had given up – he was the eldest and yet he really couldn’t comprehend just what was going on inside the Doctor’s head. What else was there for any of them to do for the Doctor?

Once more the TARDIS made a groaning shunt and a hiss from the central column; the time ship was trying to communicate something extremely important – a gazing beam came from above, like a spotlight only warmer and of toned down and mellow yellow, a cool gold like the same that coloured the crystalline pillars scattered over the flight control room. Yaz was caught within it, and only Yaz. Graham and Ryan were both still consumed by the bedroom-like lowlight that enveloped the whole of the control room. She felt on the spot, selected by the TARDIS, a ship and apparently an entity that none of them understood beyond the task it was created to – travel in time. It was like being selected by an ancient headmaster in the lower years of the primary education, like being looked at by a godly figure.

“I think _she’s_ trying to tell ya something, Yaz,” Ryan affirmed, knowing the very ship itself was trying to nudge the copper to go talk to the Time Lord.

But Yaz felt shaky now, doubtful as her head swelled with visions of the possibilities if she went and spoke to the woman. Graham was smiling paternally too; his hands in his jacket pocket making him really look like a grandfather not just to Ryan but to her too.

Like the Doctor before her, now Yaz felt like she was pounding on the inside of her body, pressure insurmountable. What difference would Yaz make on the Doctor if the three of them couldn’t do it all together? There was now only doubt within Yasmin’s mind now as the TARDIS ignited her in low and mellow light.

“No,” Yaz slammed into the silence, moving over to the commanding console with tears welling in her eyes. She pressed the emergency stop combination of buttons the Doctor had instructed them all to use if they wanted to just return home at a moment’s notice and let it all up. That’s what Yaz wanted right now – she couldn’t handle being relied on to rally a woman she loved so much but knew so much nothing about. She couldn’t do it, she wasn’t ready

“What’re you doing? We need you, Yaz! The _Doc_ needs you!” Graham protested as the TARDIS landed with a smooth thump underneath them all. It sounded like a submarine surfacing. “You can’t bail on us now, Yaz. Come on!”

She was already transferring an apologetic kiss to her fingers and then to touch the TARDIS console. She felt terrible about this, especially with Graham now barking in disbelief at her and Ryan looking like she’d betrayed them all but it simply was not fair to put this on her. There was no way she felt confident in this and now Yaz felt almost as bad as the Doctor. Their little group was fracturing like withered an aged wood. Graham threw his arms up and down again as she reached the TARDIS door, her head pounding and her face wet with tears. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

“Graham... I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

* * *

Yaz’s flat was a small abode. She didn’t let anyone really see it if she could help it, for the sake of preserving the hardy exterior and familial wholesomeness she exhumed by staying a lot with her parents and sister. But her own residence still reflected her as a person. It was somehow grunge and almost garage-style with some of her commendations and certificates littering the walls along with some masks and other ornaments from what one could only assume was the Orient and around India and Pakistan. A lot of the main living room looked thoroughly lived in but not outright messy – Yaz was clean, and the sitting area just looked well maintained. The only thing the whole place was missing (usually besides Yaz herself) was someone else to be company.

She walked into the kitchen in her dressing gown and with bed head worse than she’d had in a long while. The two (almost space-like) buns atop her crown had come almost both completely undone and now the messy clump of her brunette locks were frizzing and curling all around her temples. She flicked the kettle on and yawned, looking about for the telly remote but finding nothing. It was as if she was on autopilot until she looked at the clock.

Eleven-thirty.

“Shit...” Yaz whispered to herself. Why was she sleeping so late now? It had been just over a week since leaving the TARDIS and neither Ryan nor Graham had given her a call or a text. Just as well, she was still slightly annoyed at them and still doubtful she could have helped the Doctor at all.

The Doctor... Yaz suddenly dropped her spoon on the countertop and covered her mouth. She’d left the Doctor. She’d let the Time Lord leave the control room for the bowels of the TARDIS and had left suddenly still, leaving the woman in the funk she’d been in since they’d all defeated the Master. What kind of companion – _friend_ – did that make her?

More suddenly still, Yaz began to feel a whirlwind in her kitchen, right behind her. The flat shook a little, and she pressed her back to the counter as the familiar whirling of the TARDIS struck her ears – the craft was materialising right before her as if her wishing and thoughts of the Doctor had conjured her here on a moment. From the empty space of the kitchen floor, barely able to fit itself within the dimensions of the flat, the blue wood came into being right in front of her face. The TARDIS landed with that same shunt, like a massive printing press suddenly stopping abruptly only this time the craft was eying her closer than anything. Yaz couldn’t help but feel like the two windows on the front (one on each door) were glaring at her like inquisitive eyes; they felt like they were so furious with her.

Still, in her navy-blue dressing gown and with the craziest bed head, Yaz fumbled with the front door, knocking frantically but quietly and pressing her fingers to it afterwards. She was whispering to the doors to open, that she was here now, they both were and that Yaz needed to talk to the Doctor.

“Graham... Ryan! Open the doors!” She begged into the wood, thumping it with the front of her knuckles.

When the door finally did creak open a slit and allowed Yaz immediate entry (which she too, fumbling through the folds of her gown sleeves to tumble into the time ship), she discovered that Graham and Ryan were both nowhere to be seen; instead, all Yaz could see was the Doctor at the control panel, only she wasn’t standing up at all. She was hunched over the console panel and her back was shaking. Her muted lilac coat was tossed on the floor as if discarded and her suspenders were off her shoulders. The Doctor was even barefoot.

“Doc- _tor_?” Yaz stuttered as she edged forward little by little.

There was a shot of silence, right before the Doctor finally turned around. Yaz saw her immediately more vulnerable and naked than ever before – her eyes were glassy beyond belief and her face was red and blotchy; unadulterated evidence that she’d been crying. No, not crying – _weeping_. There were even rips, or what looked like claw marks into her t-shirt and opposed to Yaz’s insane bed head, the Doctor’s blonde almost pixie cut was dishevelled and all over the place as if she’d been in a fight.

“Yaz...” The Doctor wept, crumbling to the floor under the control console.

The recently-roused Yaz darted forward as fast as her slipper-covered feet could take her, falling to her own knees beside the Doctor and her hands magnetising to the Time Lord’s. The air in both their bodies ramped up within an instant, the wet aura between them melting as Yaz rested her head upon the top of the Doctors. It took several more seconds for both of them to be crying, with Yaz whispering a constant ‘sorry’ to the withered Time Lord. The Doctor felt so fragile now, shaking in Yaz’s hands as they cuddled in the control room. That’s all Yaz wanted to do, and all the Doctor wanted to do too – cuddle and hug.

“I’m here,” Yaz affirmed. “I’m right here and I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”

“Thank you...” The Doctor meekly replied.

There came a ping from the kitchen outside the only ajar TARDIS door. The kettle was done boiling, and Yaz always misjudged the fill line enough to make sure there was enough water for two cups of whatever – coffee or tea, it always rotated.

“I lo...” The Doctor stammered.

“Do you...” Yaz had spoken at the same time as they both calmed little by little. “You go first, Doctor. I’m right here to listen.”

The Doctor flinched rather erratically before wrapping her arms rapidly around Yaz and held on for dear life as she clenched her companion closer. Her breathing was frantic on Yasmin’s neck and she knew the Doctor couldn’t control it. “I love you, Yaz,” the Doctor finally confessed in a muffled whisper and Yaz felt the whole world melting away with the pressure in her body. Thank heavens for that; because now Yaz could say it back.

“I love you too, Doctor... And I have since the moment I met ya...” she finally confessed wholeheartedly, her chest giving way as the secret escaped her mouth. “Do you want a cuppa?”


End file.
